Stolen Content, Sitepoint and Host turn blind eye!

I had realized that a site CrazyFactor.com run by John Comokaz has been scraping my RSS feed for quite a while and publishing the content as his own.

He has been using a software by Elliot Back for this purpose.

I got a notification from a visitor that John is now trying to sell off CrazyFactor on SitePoint Auctions.

Being stuck in India and I am absolutely sure I can’t do much, I got down to writing to Feedburner support, many of the authors whose content is being stolen (including Robert Scoble), the host Bitesites (whose support is so crappy I am sure I won’t even think of hosting with them) and Sitepoint (where the auction is being held).

I didn’t receive a reply from any of the authors, though I did find a post by Robert Scoble (not sure if he found out because of my email or just otherwise).

I haven’t received a reply from SitePoint. I guess they don’t even bother looking at emails from small folks like me, even if illegal sites are being sold on their Auctions. A bid has for $50 has been received for the auction. Guess there are buyers for illegal sites as well!

As for the host, I received one reply and after that none. CrazyFactor continues run even today and I guess not only will it run, but it will also be sold!

From what I notice about John Comokaz, his entire business deals in scams and splogs. By using RSS Scraping software he builds sites and then sells them off.

I would like to compliment Feedburner support for their quick and helpful response. They have even gone to the extent of offering to give me any kind of log data to help prevent the theft. However, my latest posts haven’t been appearing on CrazyFactor (possible because I banned the host servers in my .htaccess).

I’m hoping Robert succeeds in doing something. You need people with more influence to work their magic!

Any suggestions on what should I do? (Legal action isn’t really an option)

Update 1: I have also written to Google Adsense. But, I don’t know how much they will do since the ads have been removed from the site.

Update 2: I received a reply from Sitepoint Marketplace Support saying that they can do absolutely nothing about this!

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us about this.

Unfortunately, SitePoint is unable to offer assistance when a dispute such as this arises between two members. We don’t act as an intermediate party in any transactions and therefore cannot vouch for the reliability of any member or items for sale. We encourage participants in our Marketplace to do as much research as possible before conducting any transaction.

While I would like to follow this up for you, we really don’t have the resources to do so or the qualifications to make judgements about what is and what isn’t stolen content.

Our Marketplace does not currently have a feature allowing members to leave negative feedback about other members. Since leaving negative feedback in a comment is not allowed, this is an issue we are currently looking into.

Best regards,

I am extremely surprised to receive such a response from the Sitepoint team. Then again, aren’t they getting a cut from every sale?

Maybe if they understood that it wasn’t a dispute between just two members and that I wasn’t giving negative feedback they would understand the gravity of the situation.

They may probably sit up when a similar splog steals the content of their articles and publishes it as its own.

Update 3: The site and the other blogs in the account that scrapped content have been suspended. Thanks to Tailor Made Servers for their prompt action.
And this wouldn’t have been possible without Duncan’s help.

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Post Details

Post Date :: Monday, Aug 28th, 2006 at 1:14 am
Category :: Computers & Technology and Personal and Spam
Tags :: aggregator, content, feed, Feedburner, RSS, sitepoint, Spam, splog
Do More :: You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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Roger Kondrat says:
August 28th, 2006 at 1:57 am

Hi Ajay,

I am not a heavy hitter either but I will put in my bit too. I think us small guys have to stick together.

I will be in touch another day to ask how you found out some of this stuff and the .htaccess bit too.

I am in the UK and so just about to head out on my evening of some drink and social with mates.

When I get home later I will write the post then and link to you and Scoble.

PS. If Scoble read your email it doesn’t sound like he was listening because he came out against Elliot Back which you clearly didn’t do in your post.

PPS Good job on checking your facts. And nice blog by the way.

Cheers,
Roger

Ajay says:
August 28th, 2006 at 2:07 am

Hi Roger,

Feel free to contact me, though I think a good idea would be for me to post. It wasn’t much, so I won’t even call it a tutorial!

I didn’t write to Robert about who exactly ran the site. He misunderstood who the owner was. Then again I am not sure if it was my email that prompted his post.

Do spread the word about content being stolen. Just don’t link to his site. Do like I did with a bold link.

Darren McLaughlin says:
August 28th, 2006 at 3:20 pm

Looks like somebody took care of this. The site says “suspended” now. Good work.

Ajay says:
August 28th, 2006 at 3:55 pm

Darren, check Update 3 above

Lorelle says:
August 28th, 2006 at 10:03 pm

The part of your post that broke my heart is the assumption that because you are in another country, you can’t do anything to stop the theft of your content. NOT TRUE. Copyright protection laws may different but they are valid across borders. For more information, you might want to check out What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content.

Ajay says:
August 29th, 2006 at 12:42 am

Hi Lorelle,

Thanks for the link, it is a great read!

I did end up getting the site banned

My statement about being from another country mainly involved if I had to take legal action or similar. Being stuck at the other end of the world put me at a major disadvantage.

I need to add Creative Commons logos on my site. Had it at one time and then the plugin got outdated and I didn’t follow. That is on top priority now!

vamsi says:
August 29th, 2006 at 2:19 am

i say.

“well done!”

Victor says:
August 30th, 2006 at 5:38 am

Content theft disputes are best settled through DMCA notifications, sent to the webhosting company who is running the servers.

Complaining to SitePoint’s MarketPlace, Feedburner, etc. won’t do much since they ultimately can’t get the site taken down…

Ajay says:
August 30th, 2006 at 9:02 am

Hi Victor,

I had to send an email to the host. The DMCA wasn’t required

Was going to do just that in case no action was taken.

Luminus says:
August 31st, 2006 at 1:48 pm

This is the height of it. This guy is actually quite stupid. I’ve read the post on Lorelle’s blog, it’s very insightful.

Congratulations on getting the blogs banned

You may also want to install this plugin from Simple Thoughts that includes a Copyright Message in your RSS and ATOM feeds. At least that makes it pretty obvious that the feed is being leeched and sort of takes care of the bit about gathering evidence.

Ajay says:
August 31st, 2006 at 5:05 pm

Already am using the plugin.
That is how I was contacted about the auction on Sitepoint

Luminus says:
September 1st, 2006 at 3:56 pm

Oh! Ok. I should’ve figured. You’re a bigger geek than I am.

At least that’s sorted. The issue now is prevention. Is there anything one can really do?

Ajay says:
September 1st, 2006 at 4:58 pm

There are a few things that you can do. That is where a new article I am writing comes into the picture

Eric says:
October 8th, 2006 at 5:24 pm

Good job getting him shut down Ajay! I can’t believe the response you got from Sitepoint. What a bunch of clowns.

Ajay says:
October 8th, 2006 at 5:31 pm

Thanks Eric,

I too was really surprised at the reply. Well… can’t help feeling that it is a matter of their cut afterall?
Then again, I didn’t slap a DMCA notice.